Ron Robins, MBA, Blog Author

For over forty years I have engaged in, and devoted myself to, the fields of economics, finance, and the development of human consciousness.

I'm deeply concerned about America's economic and financial problems and am writing a book on how I believe they can be fixed. The book's working title: "Resolving America's Economic Quagmire," with a subtitle, "People gaining inner fulfillment is the key.”

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Posts Tagged ‘United States’

“For the first time in nearly half a century, trade between nations has grown slower than the global economy. Some economists believe trade may be at a peak, at least for a while. “Peak Trade” suggests the world could hit a long-term ceiling in terms of the effects of trade growth as an economic driver.”
— Has the Global Trade Engine Stalled? By Eric Justian, December 19, 2014, TriplePundit, U.S.A.

Commentary: Ron Robins
Buy local, make locally, is a major trend in all countries. The huge U.S. economic stimulus package of five years ago mandated domestic sourcing and production, wherever possible. In the U.S., as in many countries, there are large constituencies who see global trade as contributing to massive losses of high paying domestic jobs. Hence, like the U.S., countries around the world are emphasizing buy local, make locally.

Furthermore, renowned trends forecaster Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute predicts these trends growing globally together with an anti ‘made in China’ mindset among developed countries’ consumers.

Most of these trends likely apply mostly to the goods trade. But it remains to be seen if the services side of global trade is similarly constrained. My suspicion is that with the growth of the web and recently introduced simultaneous multi-lingual VOIP services such as Skype has inaugurated, services might yet see much further globalization. Services also constitute about 70% of global GDP.

For a more detailed understanding on the growth of the global services trade, read my post, Huge Migration of Service Jobs to Developing World Looming. That essay implies that over the long-term global trade in services — and due to lower cost structures particularly benefits the developing economies — could grow appreciably faster than world GDP.

From an Enlightened Economics perspective, the freer the trade, the better. There’s no better means to economic growth than for the ‘invisible hand’ of the market to function seamlessly and optimally.

Overview (Excerpt)
“Professor Kotlikoff calculates this fiscal abyss of the U.S. Federal Government as an astounding unfunded liability of $205 trillion. It equals a current debt of about $665,000 for every living American adult and child. And most of this sum pertains to health care. The health care costs quagmire poses a financial deathblow to the U.S. economy and its citizens. To avert this calamity, America’s health care system will be revamped.

Notwithstanding Obamacare, one way will be to re-organize the health care system according to well-studied methodologies that show huge potential cost savings. While another way—garnering increasing attention—is by utilizing scientifically validated disease prevention interventions such as the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program. Also, many political leaders, economists and others, believe there will need to be substantial reductions in health care benefits as well.

Interestingly, by deploying the known methodologies and interventions inferred to above and written about below, it might not be necessary to reduce benefits yet still be able to cut health care costs a stunning 50-80 per cent!”

Major health care cost drivers. Reducing their cost through health system reform and introduction of the Transcendental Meditation disease prevention program (Excerpt)“The major health care cost drivers are:

The increasing incidence of chronic disease in an aging population

Relatively fewer workers to pay for increasing costs

Exceptionally high professional fees relative to other developed countries

Huge oversupply of services, equipment

Administration costs and fraud

Now we look at these issues one by one, and where appropriate, determine the role that individual TM practice can play in reducing their costs.”

The increasing incidence of chronic disease in an aging population (Excerpt)
“Over half of Americans have chronic diseases. Yet, despite significant improvements in treatments for chronic diseases, their incidence and related financial costs continue rising dramatically.

Actual costs of America’s seven most common chronic diseases—cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, pulmonary conditions and mental disorders—have been estimated at $1.3 trillion annually by Ross DeVol and colleagues, or about 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). Their unique and original study quantified almost all related costs to employers, governments, and to the U.S economy. They say those costs could reach $4.2 trillion by 2023.

Numerous researchers cite the growing incidence of chronic disease as mostly due to aging. However, many in the medical field also believe that more important than aging are the unhealthy lifestyles, diets, and behaviors of most Americans. And this is another area where the TM practice can be highly beneficial. Aside from its well-documented physical health benefits, TM creates an ‘inner fulfillment and self-sufficiency’ that alleviates the desire for the kind of instant gratification (with bad lifestyles, diets, etc.) that cause much chronic disease.

The first major study demonstrating the effectiveness of the TM practice in reducing chronic disease (and overall illness) was by Dr. David Orme-Johnson in 1987. Using Blue Cross/Blue Shield data, Dr. Johnson found an average 50% reduction in medical utilization in all 16 major disease categories studied among subjects practicing TM as compared to matched controls.

As the elderly are responsible disproportionately for health care costs, some researchers suggest they be particularly encouraged to practice TM. One leading researcher on health care costs, Dr. Robert Herron, wrote about this in the Huffington Post on July 13, 2012. Dr. Herron remarked–on a study he did–that, ‘In the Medicare population… the highest spending 25 percent of seniors accounted for 85 percent of total expenses’ and that there was ‘a 28 percent reduction in doctors’ bills over five years from baseline for persistent high-cost people who practiced the TM technique.’”

Relatively fewer workers to pay for increasing health care costs (Excerpt)
“Between 2012 to 2050 the United Nations predicts the U.S. labor force having far fewer workers (aged 15 to 64 years) for every American over 65 years—down from 5 to 3 workers over that period.”

Huge oversupply of services, equipment (Excerpt)
“After reviewing the book, Tracking Medicineby John E. Wennberg, Arnold Relman on September 30, 2010, wrote, ‘[Wennberg] provides convincing evidence that oversupply of services throughout the U.S. adds greatly to the cost of care.’

Mr. Relman adds, ‘Wennberg [says] that since the medical care in the low-expenditure areas is not discernibly different in quality from that in the high-expenditure areas, a huge amount of money could be saved if all the country were to receive care the way it is provided in the low-expenditure areas. Wennberg estimates the savings would be about 30 to 40 percent.’”

Administration costs and fraud (Excerpt)“American health care administrative costs (at roughly 7 per cent of all health care costs) are roughly double those of other developed countries, says Mark Pearson, Head, Health Division, of the OECD. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation calculates that fraud costs the health care system about $80 billion annually—or about 3 per cent of all health care expenditures.”

Conclusion (Excerpt)
“Resolving the health care financial quagmire and avoiding its potential financial deathblow requires unparalleled changes to the health care system and Americans’ attitudes about their health and health care. It requires reforming the health care system by implementing known cost-effective modalities. It means introducing scientifically validated cost-saving disease prevention programs such as the TM technique that create an inner fulfillment and self-sufficiency that engenders improved personal psychology, healthier lifestyles, diets, and so forth.

Implementing these recommendations could cut U.S. health care costs by 50-80 per cent and improve health outcomes—all without reducing benefits!”

References
DeVol, R. at al. (2007). An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease—Charting a New Course to Save Lives and Increase Productivity and Economic Growth, Milken Institute.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rooting out health care fraud is central to the well-being of both our citizens and the overall economy.
Herron, R. E. (2011). Changes in physician costs among high-cost transcendental mediation practitioners compared with high-cost non practitioners over 5 years, American Journal of Health Promotion, 26(1), 56-60.
International Federation of Health Plans. (2012). Comparative Price Report, Variation in Medical and Hospital Prices by Country, United Kingdom.
Kotlikoff, L. J. (2012). The Hysterical Economy, VOX, December 16, 2012.
Kotlikoff, L. J. (2013). America in Worse Fiscal Shape than Detroit–Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, video interview with host Greg Hunter, USA Watchdog, December 4.
Orme-Johnson, D. (1987). Medical care utilization and the Transcendental Meditation program, Psychosomatic Medicine, 49(1), 493–507.
Pearson, M. (2009). Disparities in health expenditure across OECD countries: Why does the United States spend so much more than other countries? Written statement to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, September 30, P.7.
Relman, A. (2010). Health Care: The Disquieting Truth, The New York Review of Books, September 30.
United Nations. (2012). Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Population Ageing and Development.
Wennberg, J. E. (2010). Tracking Medicine:A Researcher’s Quest to Understand Health Care, Oxford University Press, first edition.

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* In his prospective book, Resolving America’s Economic Quagmire… individuals gaining inner fulfillment is the key, Mr. Robins elucidates America’s hidden structural economic and social fault lines, their costs, and the economic benefits when resolved in the viable manner he prescribes. Furthermore, he determines that unresolved, these fault lines are a deathblow to America’s well-being.

Mr. Robins believes this financial deathblow might only be stopped by a fundamental shift in individual and collective consciousness: from that centered on seeking instant gratification and fulfillment outside of ourselves, to one focused on ‘internal fulfillment and mental balance.’ Mr. Robins argues that to create this change, the scientific literature suggests the Transcendental Meditation program could be an optimal solution.

Each chapter of his book examines an area of society—health, environment, family, crime, and so forth—in the light of known cost-effective modalities to improve conditions applicable to that area, as well as the associated merits of the TM program. Where possible, the dollar cost savings are shown in relation to their share of gross domestic product (GDP). Mr. Robins estimates his proposals may produce overall savings to GDP of over 40 per cent.

These cost savings will allow for the deployment of unparalleled new economic resources to greatly enhance Americans’ economic and social well-being.

By Ron Robins. Re-published October 20, 2012. First published March 3, 2011, in his weekly economics and finance column at alrroya.com

Governments are repeatedly asked to create laws and regulations to restrain ‘free’ markets. Of course the failure of free markets is not usually the markets themselves, but it is often the character, or lack of it, of the individuals participating in those markets.

Some individuals or companies having gained powerful monopolistic or oligopolistic market positions make unseemly profits by exploiting their market power. Sometimes using abhorrent methods, they drive out other market participants and/or create major obstacles to bar new market entrants. Looking to recent US experience concerning its financial markets is insightful. But what is revealed about the character of the market participants there is found to a lesser or greater degree in markets everywhere, and in every country.

The 2007-10 US financial crises epitomizes the fact that free markets often give rise to behaviours by individuals where, in the quest for financial gain, they lose any sense of moral direction or mental discipline. They display a disregard for ethics, honesty and integrity.

Confirming that widespread loss of ethics was at the heart of the US-based financial crises is a January 2011 report by the US government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. A central finding was that, “there was a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics at all levels.” By ‘all levels,’ the Commission refers especially to US government regulatory oversight agencies as well as to the financial institutions.

However, for the roots of such poor ethics you need only look at the behaviour of students in the US school system. It seems that cheating by students has grown alarmingly in US schools, colleges and universities in recent decades. The highly respected US Educational Testing Service says that “while about 20 per cent of college students admitted to cheating in high school during the 1940s, today between 75 and 98 per cent of college students surveyed each year report having cheated in high school… [and the] profile of college students more likely to cheat: business or engineering majors [and] those whose future plans include business.”

Such high levels of cheating especially in US schools associated with business education appear to suggest the schools are relatively tolerant of it. Thus, the students probably infer that cheating might be worthwhile in their business careers too.

When so many people accept cheating and dishonesty as normal, problems can become huge in number. And in working out their problems Americans frequently resort to adversarial methods using lawyers to solve their issues. As a result, the US is the most litigious society on earth with one lawyer for every 265 people, compared to one lawyer for 400 to 1,400 people in most western European countries.

Thus, the full costs to US society of poor ethics and undisciplined behaviour are immense, though difficult to quantify. In particular, they include the costs of administering, policing, and complying with numberless laws and regulations at all levels that stifle economic and societal progress.

President Obama is presently campaigning to reduce the number of government regulations that impede business efficiency. Yet, while in office he has added an inordinate number of new laws and regulations, as much or more than any other US president. Consider the many, many thousands of new laws and regulations alone in the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (to purportedly stop a repeat of the financial meltdown) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a massive, complex restructuring of US healthcare).

However, there is a way in which the numberless laws and regulations can be reduced and thereby promotes freer markets and greater prosperity for all. It requires that the individual acts in ways that he or she knows are right and ethical first, and that the gain or loss of any action is secondary. Hence it is a matter of individual consciousness.

In most religious and cultural traditions, honesty, not wronging others, etc., are central tenets. Also, most religions proclaim that if you harm others, the harm comes back to you one away or another, thereby reducing the temptation of unethical activities. However, even people who are non-religious would generally subscribe to the ideas of honesty and not harming others. Such behavioural guideposts help form the foundation for any civilized society. Thus, individuals acting with a high degree of consciousness would make the need for many laws and regulations redundant.

Americans should realize that their systemic problems of debt, deficits, structural economic deficiencies and loss of world standing, are at least partly due to a breakdown in their own individual and collective consciousness. If the US wants to regain the promise that true free markets can offer—and with fewer laws and regulations—they must ensure that its citizens aim for a higher consciousness: one of ethics, honesty, integrity and mental discipline. Though the example depicted here is the US, similar circumstances exist in countries everywhere.

For the US and all countries, it is not that free markets are bad and must be regulated. Regulations can be much reduced or even eliminated, if the markets are populated with individuals of higher consciousness and disciplined minds. Then that ‘invisible hand’ which guides all free markets can work its magic in creating sustainable prosperity and economic equity for all.